1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed at medical imaging technology, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for ultrasound imaging with autofrequency selection.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medical imaging technology is used to improve the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. Presently available medical imaging technology includes a wide variety of ultrasound, X-ray, nuclear, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other imaging systems.
In these medical imaging technologies, various parameters may be controlled that affect the resultant image. By way of example, with catheter-based ultrasound imaging technology, the imaging beam aperture size, imaging beam frequency, and apodization parameters may be adjusted as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,629,929 to Jago (“Jago” hereafter) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,354,997 to Holley (“Holley” hereafter), which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. Other adjustable parameters for ultrasound and non-ultrasound imaging technologies also exist.
To adjust a parameter in a typical catheter-based ultrasound imaging system, a user inputs a desired parameter change, which is then implemented by the particular imaging system. This requires the user to know how the parameter change will affect the image, and may require the user to iteratively try a number of different parameter changes to achieve a desired result. Thus, this process may be tedious, time consuming, and involve significant user-system interaction.
Other problems with the prior art not described above can also be overcome using the teachings of the present invention, as would be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art after reading this disclosure.